On the anvils of developers from Larian Studios Now two projects are boiling – Divinity: Original Sin and Dragon Commander. And if with the first everything is more or less clear-the classic RPG in the best traditions Larian, – That Dragon Commander raises many perplexed questions. The authors promise some incomprehensible explosive mixture of role-playing, strategic and desktop-card games. Dragons with satchels, wives-skeletons and ships soaring over the ground appear in the previews. It is not clear to an outside observer how all this will work. PR manager Larian Studios Cyril of carriers showed us the early game build and satisfied our curiosity a little.
Knights with a twinkle
In fact, everything turned out to be out of disgrace simply. Mechanics Dragon Commander In general, it is extremely reminiscent Total War. There is a global map where we recruit units, rebuild buildings, produce technological improvements and so on;There is a battle map on which the fate of the war will be directly supposed.
The color of the game gives the study of the flying ship – our command center. We are allowed to wander along its various compartments and personally talk to the inhabitants. If in the series Total War The solution of diplomatic problems or receiving some side tasks were carried out within the framework of the global card, then in Dragon Commander All household concerns are visualized. Here I found the use of all talents Larian In the creation of role -playing games: charismatic characters, interesting dialogs and difficult moral dilemmas – all this Dragon Commander Has in abundance.
But we will not run forward. The main character of the game is a fiery knight, to whom fate is ordered to defeat the evil powerful lady Aurora, who once harmed the father of our adventurer. But first we have to win the Rivedal torn by feudal contradictions. All that is to perform such grandiose tasks is a small land, the ability to turn into a dragon and a ship soaring in heaven, on which our advisers, generals and other lovely creatures live.
It is these guys who make it with great curiosity and pleasure to join the dialogs. Each of our advisers representing a certain race embodies some kind of satirical image. So, the dwarves here personify the bourgeois, looking for financial benefits in everything;lizards – advanced liberals;elves are preoccupied with the state of the environment;undead suffers from religious fanaticism;And Impes just want to blow everything up. During each new course, they are ready to report something new, give out a fresh joke or set some difficult diplomatic task.
Marriage of convenience
For example, the question of the legalization of marijuana. “Weed” can be used for therapeutic purposes, however, its use is ambiguous in terms of morality. Each of our advisers speaks on the issue and argues their own position. In this case, only undead defends conservative views. We have three options – to give a decision for consideration of the majority, adopt a new law or reject it. The choice will not only increase or lower your authority in the eyes of representatives of a particular race, but also affect further events – in the future a character who will whine about the fact that drugs broke his life may be shown.
In general, to be distracted from the direct warfare for chatter with crew members and solving such problems in Dragon Commander Very nice. What is worth at least the opportunity to choose a bride for yourself! Each of the advisers, wanting to relax with a great fiery knight, offers his own daughter to our wife. The development of relations with a girl is a separate storyline in the game. The favorite of the public, according to Cyril, became a representative of the undead – a female skeleton, dreaming of gaining beautiful human flesh. We are free to fulfill the dream of our beloved, to collect individual parts of the body from all the lands of Rivellon and to glue from them a kind of Frankenstein. Or you can choose another way and turn your spouse into a robot.
We did not go to the majority and chose a lizard as a wife. The lady turned out to be with the character: having said that love joys is nothing compared to reading books, she advised us to find a concubine, for she should not expect female attention from her. In general, one passage to get acquainted with all the plot ups and downs is clearly not enough. And the point is not only that I terribly want to spin a romantic with a representative of a new kind: each next war for Rivelon will differ significantly from the previous one – the global map and a set of quests that our associates are ready to offer are changing.
The evolution of dragons
Love love, but in the foreground diplomatic calculations. Any area of the card belongs to a certain race, and the higher the popularity of the fiery knight in the eyes of one or another people, the more money we will receive in one move.
And there is something to spend money on. On each land plot, one of the available buildings can be built by choosing a specialization of the region – for example, build barracks and rivet troops or make the land with a stronghold of science, accelerating the development of technology. The latter, as in Total War, will lead us from a stick -caping state to the highest forms of “units”.
“Pumping” is also subject to the skills of a dragon taking a direct part in the battle. Four types of fire -breathing creatures are given to us to choose from, the skills of each of which are focused on a certain tactics of the battle – there is a loner, counting on their own strength, but there is a collectively -minded “bird” that treats or enhances the main troops.
The development of diplomatic relations with generals sitting https://jurisnotary.com/pgs/safety-and-security-measures-at-non-gamstop-irish-casinos.html in the bar of our ship is also important. Before the start of any fight, we can choose an option of the autoboy and to ensure the conduct of warfare to one of the military leaders. The success of the battle in this case will depend on the position of the general to us – if he is fanatically devoted to the knight, he will be able to leave the winner from the most hopeless situation.
Dragons on the battlefield
But to trust the outcome of the war to anyone is not the path of a real fiery knight. Before starting the battle, we are offered to choose several dragon skills that we are going to use, as well as a set of five cards. The latter are small bonuses in the form of additional detachments, an increase in the speed of attack, and so on. Cards are issued by chance at each move, as well as for the implementation of various quests. In multiplayer battles, by the way, the enemy will be able to see only three cards of those that you use – the other two for him will be a secret, which opens up the scope for strategic tricks.
Before starting a tactical battles, the game will appreciate your chances of success. In the build proposed to us, this system did not work too accurately – with almost the same armies on both sides, according to the computer, our chances were zero are equal. Nevertheless, we decided to challenge fate.
The global card disappears, and we find ourselves in front of the battle screen. Its interface is made in a traditional style for RTS. As for the graphics, although Cyril constantly apologized for the unsightly appearance, explaining it with the damp of build, landscapes, models and animation looked very pleasant.
Our first task is to capture platforms for the construction of buildings scattered in different sections of the map as soon as possible. The enemy is engaged in the same, so the fastest will get a tactical advantage. We can build turrets or barracks in which Units are created right on the battlefield. Thus, the tactical part of the game comes down to the capture and protection of key points. Here, the ability to turn into a dragon playing the role of fire support from the air turns out to be useful here. In this mode, we are distracted from the management of the main troops and from a third party we lead the actions of the fiery knight.
In our case, the enemy had some quantitative and qualitative superiority, so he managed to quickly capture the advantage on the map. However, then he showed the top of military thought – instead of creating a large army and defeating our last stronghold, the enemy riveted the “units” and sent them in a single copy to death. The turrets shot them without problems, giving us the opportunity to collect our own army and go on a counterattack. Artificial intelligence acted ingenuously and straightforwardly. However, we were assured that all problems in the final version would be eradicated.
Despite some flaws, Dragon Commander It looks very worthy. Larian Studios I tried to transfer all my experience accumulated over a considerable time for the creation of RPG to the basis of strategies. We were not able to evaluate all the possibilities and charms of the project due to the lack of time and oddities of AI, but with regard to diplomacy, characters, dialogs and the corporate “Larian” humor, it is performed at an altitude.
